HARTMAN AND TAYLOR URGE METRO LABOR

‘Answer from the streets’ on Oct. 14

TORONTO — ‘‘The decision
is ours to stand solidly and un-
itedly together, not only as trade
unionists, but with those 750,000
unemployed workers, with stu-
dents, with senior citizens, with
‘the anti-poverty groups; or we
have the choice to.stand with the
federal government: and their

guidelines and the monopolies.
I’m sure that when you’re asked
which side you’re on, you will
-answer from the streets on Oct.
14.”

This was the way in which
Grace Hartman, president of the
Canadian Union of Public Em-
ployees, expressed her con-
fidence in the success of labor’s
planned Day of National Protest
against the government’s wage-
cutting ‘‘anti-inflation program’’,
here Sept. 16.

Hartman, who presides over
‘Canada’s largest trade union,
joined Don Taylor, administra-
tive assistant to William

_ Mahoney, Canadian Director of
the United Steelworkers of

America, in exposing the fraud of
the controls and reporting the
progress in the mobilization for
the Oct. 14 protest to a packed
meeting of the Metro Toronto
Labor Council.

_ Taylor spoke at lerigth on the

According to Statistics Canada

nominal gross national product

_ fose by 13.2% in the second quar-

_ ter of this year, but it was all eaten

- up by inflation, which rose from an
annual rate of 8.4% in the first
quarter to 13.2% in the second
quarter of 1976, resulting in no
growth in real gross national
product.

Personal income rose 10. 8%

compared to 18.4% in the first
quarter. With personal incomes
declining, and the economy stag-
nant or moving into reverse, there
is bound to be a growth in unem-
ployment.
' The Secretariat of the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
_ (GATT) states in its annual report
that inflation remains a major
danger. But, it adds ominously,
“the margins of unemployed or
under-employed labor should be
expected to remain relatively
large for a number of years.’

No. wonder Prime Minister

_ Trudeau used the word ‘‘crisis’’

- to describe the problem of in-

. flation, speaking to a meeting of
his Liberal caucus.

“It is a bit like a wartime situa-
tion and we are asking people to
restrain themselves ... and we’re
telling people you have to pull
your belt in a little and make some
sacrifices to win the war.

‘‘And after the war, Canada

will be a land of opportunity.”
_ But the government’s plan for
fighting. inflation, its *‘cure’’ for
the country’s economy, is worse
than the disease.

Consequently the McLaren

_ Advertising. Agency in English-
speaking Canada, and BCP Ltee
in French-speaking Canada, are

_ to be'given $1.2-million to try and

inequities of the program and il-
lustrated his point-that the con-
trols were only affecting wages
while prices and profits continued
to rise’ unabated with a slide pre-

. sentation.

The Steelworkers. official
demonstrated that while the total
of net corporation profit in the
period from 1971 to ’74 more than
doubled from $4,438,000,000 to-
$8,694,000,000, labor’s share of
the national income in wages dur-
ing the same period went up
15.8%. Taylor went on to point
out that when the Consumer Price
Index (CPI) was applied to labor’s
wage increase during this period,
taking inflation into account, the
actual real increase in labor’s
share of the national income was
only 4.2%.

He also. exposed the AIB’s
claim that the program had led to
a decrease in the.CPI from 11% to
°75 to between 8-9% in the second
quarter of ’76. By removing the
food.component from the gov-
ernment’s figures, and reminding
the delegates that by the AIB’s
own admission it has no. control
on food ,price increases Taylor

‘showed how the CPI went from

9.72% in the 4th quarter of ’75 to
9.98%, 9.87%, in the first two
quarters of ’76.

GRACE HARTMAN

CUPE’s Grace Hartman lashed
out at the Trudeau government’s

‘‘political immorality’’ in mislead-

ing Canadian workers during the
°74 election campaign promising
that a liberal government would:
not introduce wage controls and
18 months later bringing in its
wage-cutting legislation.

She blasted the “phoney ad-
vertising program’’ which the
government has embarked on to

sell its controls. “‘They’re going
to spend $1.2 million of our tax
dollars to tell us why the program
is so good and why we have to

AIB ‘cure’ worse
than disease

convince Canadian working
people that they are better off
with their wages rolled back while
prices and profits are advancing.

Government-monopoly plot

In the meantime the much
costlier AIB exposes the whole
government-monopoly plot by
giving monopoly a free hand to
increase its profits while clamping
down harder on the working
people’s wages.

‘Take the case of the garage

mechanics in St. John’s who were —

rolled back by federal controls un-
til they now earn 95 cents an hour
less than other mechanics work-
ing across the street in the same
city.

Take . the 353 teachers
employed by the Sault Ste Marie
and District Separate School
Board, who have been ordered to
return $46.83 in wages gained in a
recent round of contract negotia-

-tions. Their contract was worth

8.27% in wage increases which
has now been ordered rolled back
to 8%.

_Or take the Toronto Trans- |

portation Commission, which re-
cently signed a contract with its
employees, including a clause of
both parties to urge AIB approval
of the total settlement, only to
have the General Manager of the
TTC come out publicly to state
that the TTC expects the AIB to
roll back the settlement, that the
TTC approved the current stric-

-ter attitude of the AIB and that if

the AIB approved the settlement,
which was unlikely, then cuts in
the TTC service would follow.
Even the Canada Labor Rela-
tions Board has now ruled that a
rollback by the AIB of the terms
of a collective agreement invali-

dates a contract, leaving a union
free to strike legally to protest an

AIB decision. But the ruling

applies only where the union has
complied with all requirements of
the CLRB, including the use of
conciliation services. Moreover,
it applies only to workers coming
under federal labor law juris-
diction. The ruling came in the
form of a rejection of an applica-
tion by Anvil Mining Corp. near
Faro in the Yukon for a declara-
tion of an illegal strike, applicable
to Steelworkers Union members
already on a seven-week strike to
protest an AIB wage rollback in a
place where the cost of living is
more than 30% higher than in
Vancouver, B.C.

All out Oct. 14

However, while this ruling is of
precedent-setting importance, it
should not be allowed to foster
any false illusions about legal
technicalities facilitating or
otherwise any meaningful
fightback against the AIB by indi-
vidual unions. It would be foolish
in the extreme to think that judi-
cial or quasi-judicial bodies can be
depended upon to fight labor’s
battle against monopoly power.

That is precisely why the Oc-

tober 14th National Day of Pro- —

test is so important in rallying
working class and democratic
forces in a common front as the
only effective means of counter-

acting monopoly power, forcing

the government to take note of
majority popular opinion, shift
the balance of foces in favor of the
working class and democracy and
to curb monopoly power.

For an end to both inflation and
unemployment, all-out on Oct.
14th!

times”’,

support it,”’ she said. *‘It seems to
me that if it’s such a great pro-

‘gram, it shouldn’t need all of that

advertising, nor all of that
money.’

The’ CUPE president also
charged that beside the economic
hardships that it imposed on the
Canadian working people, the

-Wage-cutting program is also

eroding the democratic rights of
Canadians.

Hartman, a veteran labor ac-
tivist reminded the delegates that
in the process of building the col-
lective bargaining system, which
the AIB is now destroying, labor
‘*had to ignore the laws ... we
had to have illegal strikes — we
had to take all kinds of action.

***We ignored the laws of those
she said, ‘‘in order that
we could build a movement and
make our workers first class
citizens.

“On Oct. 14,” Hartman de-
clared, ‘‘we have a chance to let
all Canadians know that we be-
lieve in Democracy; that we still
believe in our democratic right to
dissent.

‘‘What Oct. 14 is all about,”
Hartman concluded, ‘‘is democ-
racy, and freedom, and our future
as trade unionists and workers
able to freely negotiate collective
agreements and to retain our right
of freedom to dissent.”

Dan Heap, a Toronto alderman
and a delegate from the Canadian
Paperworkers Union followed the
guest speakers and said that the
Day of Protest was fully justified

~ and pone of how the recent BEpY:

incial cut-backs in social services
inspired by the federal wage-
cutting program are designed to
benefit the corporations. Speak-
ing on behalf of the ‘Reform
.Caucus”” in the Toronto City
Council he assured the: delegates
‘that the civic workers would get
their all out support on Oct. 14”’.

United Auto Workers delegate
Bill Devine quoted from a docu-
ment recently adopted at the
latest UAW District Council
meeting entitled ‘‘The UAW Will
Be. There’’. The document
showed how since the AIB’s im-
plementation, the board has
rolled back wages of $175 million
negotiated with their bosses.”

Neil Young of the United Elec-
trical ‘Workers (U.E.), and an
executive board member of the
labor council, reported to the
delegates that the support for the
protest is growing and that to date
over 100,000 affiliated
members have committed them-
selves to the “‘Day’’.

DOCS GO OUT OCT. 14

Doctors will join with workers
in protesting the anti-inflation
program on October 14. The
Greater Niagara Medical Society
voted to close their offices on the
Day-of Protest to show their dis-
pleasure. over Trudeau’s re-
marks about doctor’s incomes.

“You have to be bloody naive
to think doctor’s are the cause of
inflation,” says their spokesman
Dr. William Cooper.

Fleven new contract
gouges by Board

The Anti-Inflation Board
gouged into the living standards of
workers at 11 more sites in
Canada last week by ordering roll
backs in democratically nego-
tiated settlements.

- Members of the United Steel-
workers of America at three
Quebec plants of Canadian In-
dustries Ltd. were among the
hardest hit with raises of 15.27%
for the first year of their contract
rolled back to 10%.

The AIB’s axe swung into the
Northwest Territories and
chopped salary increases for
1,500 civic workers from 12% to
9.6%, but it reserved most of its

clout for the prairies, notably ~
Manitoba. Some 1,200 transit.

workers in Winnipeg saw their
16.3% increased lopped in half to
only 8.8%. Teachers at St.

James-Assiniboia, Manitoba got’

similar treatment with their 15%

. Salary increase rolled by to 10%.

The Board then turned. its at-
tention to supermarket workers
on the prairies and promptly
turned the screws on their wage
settlements by reducing increases
by as much as 15%. The workers
are employed at Safeway in Sas-
katchewan and Manitoba, at OK
Economy Stores in Alberta and
Saskatchewan and Horne and
Pitfield in Alberta. .

The other rollbacks were for
150 miners at Falconbridge
Nickel in Manibridge, Manitoba
who -were chopped down to

14.7% pay increase from a nego-

tiated 18% and at four separate

plants of Abitibi Paper Company _

in Ontario and Manitoba. Alto-
gether 850 paperworkers are
affected by the decision and will
lose a 19.8% settlement that they
fought for, to be replaced by a
14.4 increase.

The AIB seems undaunted by a
pending general strike and protest

aimed at the elimination of the

board and its wage-cutting ac-

_ tivities. A number more conttacts

will be placed on the block this
week.

Unanimous
support for
protest day

REGINA — The Saskatche-
wan Federation of Labor an-
nounced Sept. 8 the unanimous
endorsation of the October 14
Day of Protest by the executive of
the Saskatchewan Joint Board of
the Retail, Wholesale, Depart-
ment Store Union. RWDSU rep-

resents some.5,000 workers in the-

manufacturing, service and retail
industries in the province.

The Joint Board executive has
recommended that all RWDSU
locals participate in regional ac-
tivities on Oct. 14. They will be
meeting with the locals over the

next few weeks to work out the

details of that participation.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 1, 1976—Page 5